Current and Previous Tours

British Garden Tour

What better time to be in England than the merry month of May? It’s the time for well-dressing and floral dances, Morris men and Jack in the Green; a time for children to skip around a maypole, put flowers in their hair and quote Robert Browning about blossoms and swallows and dewdrops. It’s in May that the English celebrate spring by watching cricket played on a village green, raise a glass of beer in a quiet country pub to toast the beauty of the season and take time to walk in lovely, timeless gardens

KINABATANGAN RIVER, Sabah, Malaysia — High up in a tree, a female orangutan and her baby picked fruit as they slowly moved along the branches. Craning our necks, we watched as the mother stretched her strong arms and legs to form a great, hairy X against the sky. The baby — old enough to have quit clinging but still several years away from being able to manage the jungle alone — lingered higher up.

California

The first is that the Elvis Presley house is on the market, up for auction actually, on Oct. 25. This is not the futuristic House of Tomorrow where Presley and his new bride, Priscilla, so famously honeymooned in 1967, although that house hit the market earlier this year for $9.5 million, but the house that the couple bought in 1970 for $105,000 with $20,000 down when daughter Lisa Marie was two and when Palm Springs offered a relatively quiet respite for the rich and famous.

New York City

Remember that last scene in Sleepless in Seattle? The one where Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan finally meet on the observation deck of the Empire State Building? It’s a lovely bit of schmaltz and, as rom-coms are, completely untethered to reality. In real life, Tom Hanks would have had to wait in line for an hour to get to the observation deck. And if Meg Ryan had begged the elevator attendant to let her go up for a last-minute look, as she did in the movie, he would have laughed in her face. I know: I tried it.

Travel

SANTA FE, N.M. — If you travel right, there are lessons learned and memories cached from every adventure you embark upon, but few will be more lasting than the lingering taste of the local cuisine of a favourite destination.